19th Mar 2008 11:09
Polar Capital Holdings PLC19 March 2008 19 March 2008 Polar Capital Holdings plc Trading Update Trading Update Polar Capital Holdings plc ("Polar Capital" or the "Group"), the specialistasset management group, today provides a trading update in respect of currenttrading in advance of the Group's year end of 31 March 2008. Group Assets Under Management ("AUM") (unaudited) Group AUM as at 29 February 2008 were down 5.8% since 31 March 2007 (US$3.4bn)to US$3.2bn and have fallen 11.1% since 31 December 2007 (US$3.6bn). The 29 February 2008 AUM figure excludes $194m of assets held by the 3 fundsthat have been closed as commented on below. Profit for the year ended 31 March 2008 (unaudited) As at 31 December 2007 the Group had received £15.9m of gross performance fees.In addition there existed at that time accrued but not yet earned £6.8m of grossperformance fees in funds with year ends on 31 March 2008. Since then the valueof these accrued performance fees has fallen to approximately £5m as at 17 March2008. This development together with lower than anticipated management fees inthe final quarter of the year lead us to anticipate that the diluted earningsper share will be modestly below our original expectations. Commenting on today's trading update, Mark Kary, Chief Executive of PolarCapital said: "The last half year has been a challenging period for equity investors and onewhich has greatly increased the dispersion of returns in both conventional longonly and hedge funds. We have continued to feel the impact of investor'sdisenchantment with the Japanese equity market which has led to continuingredemptions in both our Japanese long only fund and our underperforming Japanesehedge fund whilst within the long only area poor performance on our Asian fundled us to close that product. On the hedge fund side we have taken theopportunity to rationalize our fund range through the closure of the modestsized Asian technology and Asian absolute return funds both of which haddelivered unsatisfactory returns. These decisions will allow us to devotegreater resource to our remaining funds many of which have delivered strongreturns through these very turbulent markets. While we are disappointed that our new financial year will be starting from alower base level of assets than we anticipated we believe that, once marketsstabilize and volatility diminishes, we are well placed to grow assets. We havebeen encouraged by the start made by our latest fund addition, Healthcare, andbelieve that the performance produced by our Paragon, Forager, Elbrus, Discoveryand Latin America funds positions them well for current and future marketing." For further information please contact: Polar Capital +44 (0)20 7227 2700Mark KaryJohn Mansell LandsbankiSimon Bridges +44 (0)20 7426 9569Claes Spang +44 (0)20 7426 7706 Financial DynamicsEd Gascoigne-Pees +44 (0)20 7269 7132Felicity Murdoch +44 (0)20 7269 7243 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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